Telangana: BRS Govt's Gross Neglect of Education Sector Exposed

There is a severe shortage of furniture, toilet facilities for girl students, lack of computers and internet in this hi-tech age which have swayed enrolment in favour of private schools.

The report exposed holes in the BRS’ claims of improving school education by spending thousands of crores of rupees.

The report highlighted infrastructural deficiencies in the 30,014 government schools with just 25,217 having functional drinking water supply, 15,986 schools with girls' toilets and 8,888 having adequate furniture. This meant that about 5,000 schools did not have drinking water and over 22,000 did not have adequate furniture.

The report said that 26,095 schools had electricity, 20,574 schools — about two-thirds — had playgrounds. Of these 30,014 schools, 8,284 had computers, and 2,760 had internet access. Additionally, only 9,726 schools offered medical check-ups.

Not only inadequate infrastructure, the data also showed disparities in performance. According to the National Achievement Survey 2021 (NAS-21), the state's average performance stood at 36.7 per cent, lower than the national average of 37.8 per cent.

Telangana students scored an average of 48 in language but lower in mathematics (32), science (35), and social studies (34) out of 100.

During the last three years, parents showed a greater preference for private schools for their children; it came on account of gross neglect of government schools and lack of basic facilities.

The overall preference for private schools in Telangana was 51.3 per cent with more students enrolled in private schools despite there being more government schools.

The state had a total of 43,083 schools with 59,60,913 students in 2021-22. Of these, the 30,014 government-run schools had 29,73,684 students, against 29,87,229 students in 13,069 private schools. The number of private schools was less than half that of government schools but had more enrolments.

The data from Udise+ reports for 2022-23 showed that things had become worse: There were 30,307 government schools with 28,95,456 students against 10,634 private schools and 30,49,766 students.

This preference was greater in the urban areas. Medchal Malkajgiri district showed the highest preference for private schools, with 81.6 per cent of students enrolled in 1,478 private schools, while it has only 558 government schools.

Hyderabad, with a total of 2,867 schools and enrolment of 7,85,054 students, showed a 77.1-per cent preference for private schools. The city has 1,863 private schools enrolling 6,05,190 students, compared to 1,004 government schools with 1,79,864 students.

In contrast, Jayashankar Bhupalpally and Mulugu districts had the least number of schools and showed lower preferences for private schools. Bhupalpally has 537 schools with 33.1 per cent of enrolments in private institutions. Mulugu had 553 schools with 20.8 per cent of enrolments in private schools.